Cobra soup that won't blow a spy's cover

Is your cooking getting a little dull? Never fear, the CIA is here. That's right, the Central Intelligence Agency has decided to publish a cookbook. No one has to settle for dinner with Delia again, or for trying to do it the River Cafe way: now you can sup with the world's top secret agents. This means getting serious about the idea of cobra for starters. It's the kind of thing that gives a dinner party a real buzz.

The book is called Spies, Black Ties and Mango Pies and consists of favourite recipes from more than 100 CIA wives and agents stationed undercover in some of the world's most dangerous places. The result is not simply an excuse to indulge in gags like "Waiter, there's a spy in my soup". It is also extremely helpful if you need to know in a hurry how to avoid serving tapeworms in the main course.

Each recipe is preceded by a spy-type anecdote. You know, like the time the souffle fell at the same time as the government, or when the dinner was peppered with a little machine-gun shot. The recipe for Sweet Onion Rings in Beer Batter, for instance, is accompanied by tips on how to flee Libya in fear of your lives. Sweet indeed.

The agency that is famously out of touch evidently thinks the cookbook - published as part of the CIA's 50th anniversary celebrations - will help to make spies seem more, well, human.

"We wanted to give the public a different picture than they are used to of CIA families," one contributor told the Chicago Tribune, "and to emphasise that these are real people. They have real spouses, real children and they have all the same problems that any other real family has."

This reality check does not go as far as actual surnames and most of the recipe contributors opt for anonymity. If this all seems over-dramatic, remember that this is the agency that gives numbers rather than last names to children at its main day-care centre. Recipes evidently pose even more of a security risk.

A woman identified only as Barbara X gave this explanation: "If people in foreign embassies go through and read the stories and try to figure out time and place, they'll know so-and-so must have been working for the agency. We didn't want to give away too much and make it horribly crystal clear where we were."

Of course, some things provide just a teensy clue. You do not have to be James Bond to figure out that whoever contributed the recipe for cobra soup was not stationed in Dorking. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1 cobra (medium size)

1 whole head garlic, coarsely chopped

1 teaspoon salt

2 dashes bottled hot pepper sauce

1 teaspoon monosodium glutamate

Directions: Catch a cobra. Cut off the head, remove the skin and internal organs. Chop the body into two-inch pieces. Place in large pot with half a gallon of water and boil for 45 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and boil for further 30 minutes. Serve hot.

Forget about the cold war, this is a hot one. The rumour is that it is to die for.